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“ The way I make art - the way a lot of people make art - is as an extension of language and communication, where references are incredibly important.”
Shepard Fairey is not only a contemporary street artist but also a graphic designer, activist, illustrator, and the founder of OBEY clothing and sticker campaign. What kicked off his career as an artist was the creation of “Andre the Giant” which was a sticker campaign through OBEY. That was the start for many of his pieces; he continued to use the same style that he used in the Andre the Giant piece and also duplicated it many times over the years making it a staple of his.
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Phenomenology is the word that Shepard Fairey uses to describe his OBEY sticker campaign. He compares it to an experiment, and is then explained as “the process of letting things manifest themselves.” Fairey uses his art and sticker campaign to really bring forth a sense of awareness to ones enviroment, whether that may be a worldly issue or something that may be more local. He is notorious for his works surrounding propaganda, not only that but he approaches it in a way that does not make it obvious. Therefore it evokes curiosity in a way that one will really question how much they know about what is going on around them. Through getting to peoples curiosity, there tends to be frustration as well. But what frustration brings is a sense of realization and a more keen attention to the details. I have always been fond of his work because of his technique of pulling in attention and his way of spreading awareness to subjects that don’t seem to have enough news coverage. 3
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“ When I think about how I want to reach an audience, I just wanted to make pieces that were inspired by something that gave me so much pleasure.�
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“ When you walk down the street and see something in a crazy spot, there is something powerful about that. The street will always be an important part of getting art out there for me.�
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That process on its own is what makes Shepard Fairey’s work so amazing. What makes his work more interesting is that OBEY does not actually have a meaning of its own and is actually left up to interpretation for the audience, and that on it’s own makes it completely unique for each piece. He has created somewhat of a trendy culture that surrounds his stickers, there is a sense of comfort and even a sense of belonging from having one of these stickers to those who may have been exposed to his artwork a lot. The Giant stickers have loyal followers, and those who reject it. But as Shepard Fairey says “the stickers existence is worthy as long as it causes people to consider the details and meanings of their surroundings.”
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Typography wise, Shepard Fairey tends to use a lot of geometric sans-serif fonts in many of his posters and stickers. The main fonts he uses is Futura; his OBEY logo uses Futura Condensed Extra Bold Oblique, and also Gotham. But he also breaks from the blocky serif fonts in order to create more unity every once in a while. Shepard Fairey uses type to really create a statement about many of his pieces. The majority of times he does use type is when he wants there to be a representation of the fact that there is a bigger issue going
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on and that people should be treated equally no matter what kind of situation they may be in. He uses stable typefaces to get the message across. There aren’t any mistakes with how he wants his message to be portrayed and that is why he is known to have such a strong portrayal of propaganda. Another big break in his artwork w a s in 2008 during the U.S. presidential election when Shepard Fairey created his well known “HOPE” poster for Barack Obama. Interestingly enough, the Obama campaign actually denied having any relation to the original piece, which actually said “Progress,” due to it being produced illegally and independently. But the campaign did eventually reach out to Shepard and asked to have the piece have HOPE replace progress. The font Gotham was used for this poster is very blocky and is in all capitals which brings out how important it is to see that along with the image of Obama. His design in this poster was the start of his fame through the Obama administration. The strong colors and familiar elements he continues to use has allowed for his art to become very distinct and recognizable among the masses.
“ In order to do our part to help OBAMA get elected, we started a grassroots campaign on a street postering level and now the OBAMA HOPE image is now part of history. We produced and distributed over 300,000 posters to be placed in windows, front yards, and businesses. We like to think we made a little difference.”
“Most campaigns rely on photographs because the moment you do something that is a graphic interpretation where any artistic license has been taken, I think a lot of people are scared that it’s going to be perceived as propaganda.”
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“ I have never really considered myself just a street artist. I consider myself a populist.�
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“For me, there has always been a disconnect with the sort of elitist structure of the high-art world and my distaste for that is at odds with my feeling that art should aspire to do great things.�
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The pieces I chose to represent in this report are ones that I have been familiar with since I first became aware of Shepard Fairey and his works. His piece that says “Create Art Not War” is a great example of good typography use because of how well he stretched the font but still created a symmetrical layout for the design in the center of the poster, there is a very appealing balance between the text on the top and the bottom. In the poster “Home Invasion” that Shepard created, there is a very successful use of hierarchy through the size of the font he uses. The most important message he wants to make sure his audience gets is the largest, and that also pulls in his audience which then pulls them downwards to read the rest of the message. He always brings forth important messages and statements even if one isn’t aware of what may be going on. In the poster “God Saves & Satan Invests” Shepard Fairey combines four different fonts in such a way that still makes them all flow very well together even though even having three on one page can seem overwhelming. In “Greetings From Iraq” he does the same thing and uses four different fonts as well. The poster “Disposable Heroes” is successful in the way that it d o es n o t u s e m u c h emphasis on typography but it still creates just enough 13
“ The way I make art -the way a lot of people make art- is as an extension of language and communication, where references are incredibly important.�
importance to the message he is trying to get through. The strong color choices he leans towards are generally red, black, yellow, and white. Those color choices reflect the intensity of the messages Fairey is portraying. You can see how progressive and controversial hispieces have become over the years as well. As his posters have become more well known he has improved his technique through design and his use of type. His minimalist style is still persistent through all of his pieces as well as his stable use of line.
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End Notes Fairey, Shepard. “OBEY GIANT | WORLDWIDE PROPAGANDA DELIVERY.” OBEY GIANT. 1990. Accessed November 17, 2015. http://obeygiant.com/. Wikipedia contributors, “Shepard Fairey,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed November 17, 2015. https://en.wikipedia. org/w/index.php?title=Shepard_Fairey&oldid=688892403 “Shepard Fairey Quotes.” BrainyQuote. 2015. Accessed November 19, 2015. http://www. brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/shepard_fairey.html. Zabar, Afiqah. “Typography – Shepard Fairey.” Behance. February 25, 2015. Accessed November 19, 2015. https://www. behance.net/gallery/23976499/Typography-Shepard-Fairey. “Shepard Fairey | FECAL FACE DOT COM.” Shepard Fairey. 2013. Accessed November 19, 2015. http://www.fecalface.com/SF/tag/ shepard-fairey. “Shepard Fairey - Life and Biography.” Stencil Revolution. September 18, 2012. Accessed November 19, 2015. http://www.stencilrevolution.com/profiles/shepard-fairey/. “Shepard Fairey.” Type and Protest. Accessed November 19, 2015. http://typeandprotest. tumblr.com/.
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“When you walk down the street and see something in a crazy spot, there’s something powerful about that. The street will always be an important part of getting art out there for me.” Shepard Fairey
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